I'm curious (okay nosey !) but if you can speak a language other then your native one how did you learn it ?

To answer the initial question: Swedish kids learn English in school from the age of 10 (at least I was 10, they might start even earlier now) - but I don't think I really knew English before I went to live in NZ for a year (if you consider that English... ), plus I was going out with a Canadian guy for a while which helped a lot.

As for German, I wouldn't really say that I know it. Though, I understand when someone speaks it very slowly... I learnt it in school for five years but that was obviously a waste of time.

Spanish: only know a couple of words and phrases. Took a beginner's course while in NZ. However, had less problem with pronunciation than the kiwis...

Then we have Norwegian and Danish... piece of cake actually, since they are very similar to Swedish. But it looks very good in your CV to know 6 different languages!!!

The European Commission has just announced an agreement whereby English will be the official language of the European Union rather than German, which was the other possibility. As part of the negotiations, the British Government conceded that English spelling had some room for improvement and has accepted a 5-year phase-in plan that would become known as "Euro-English". In the first year, "s" will replace the soft "c". Sertainly, this will make the sivil servants jump with joy. The hard "c" will be dropped in favour of "k". This should klear up konfusion, and keyboards kan have one less letter.There will be growing publik enthusiasm in the sekond year when the troublesome "ph" will be replaced with "f". This will make words like fotograf 20% shorter.In the 3rd year, publik akseptanse of the new spelling kan be expekted to reach the stage where more komplikated changes are possible. Governments will enkourage the removal of double letters which have always ben a deterent to akurate speling. Also, al wil agre that the horibl mes of the silent "e" in the languag is disgrasful and it should go away. By the 4th yer, people wil be reseptiv to steps such as replasing "th" with "z" and "w" with "v". During ze fifz yer, ze unesesary "o" kan be dropd from vords kontaining "ou" and after ziz fifz yer, ve vil hav a reil sensibl riten styl. Zer vil be no mor trubl or difikultis and evrivun vil find it ezi tu understand ech oza. Ze drem of a united urop vil finali kum tru. Und efter ze fifz yer, ve vil al be speking German like zey vunted in ze forst plas.If zis mad you smil, pleas pas on to oza pepl